AFRICA: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles

" Westerners arriving in Africa for the first time are always struck by its beauty and size - even the sky seems higher. And they often find themselves suddenly cracked open. They lose inhibitions, feel more alive, more themselves, and they begin to understand why, until then, they have only half lived. In Africa the essentials of existence - light, earth, water, food, birth, family, love, sickness, death - are more immediate, more intense. Visitors suddenly realize what life is for. To risk a huge generalization: amid our wasteful wealth and time-pressed lives we have lost human values that still abound in Africa" (Dowden, 2009).